


Piedmont's Sun

by alcyonejonquil



Category: Crusader Kings 2 (Video Game)
Genre: ...that's a bit of an understatement tbh, 14th Century, Confessions, Diary/Journal, Drama, F/M, Heavy Angst, Married Couple, Medieval Rulers, Murder, Obsessive Love, Relationship Problems, Romance, Unhealthy Relationships, Unrequited Love, Unrequited Lust, heeere we go again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:35:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22620355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alcyonejonquil/pseuds/alcyonejonquil
Summary: Gimilian de Lacon Zori, Duke of Sardinia, passed away of weak constitution and severe melancholy in the year 1389.In many ways, his life could have been... easier. More temperate.Alas, that was not what he'd been destined for, it would appear.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Piedmont's Sun

_Two full drawers of official writings bound in fine leather, belonging to His Grace Duke Gimilian of Sardinia and Susa, have been retrieved from his personal study on the morrow of his passing into the Kingdom of God, and placed into the care of his distinguished steward, signore Bartolomeo Fratini._

_These notes found scattered amongst them, which, apart from the very first paragraphs of the very first page, have proven to be of a rather more personal nature, are presently delivered to our most just and magnanimous Duchess, for safekeeping._

_Gesualdo Angioli,_

_Ducal Archivist_

***

…the sum of six hundred florins for the reconstruction of a wooden bridge damaged by the tempest, yet the demands continue to rise. Four villages have had their crops destroyed and their sheep herds decimated, and have sent representatives at court to appeal for aid. The Duchess has yet to declare herself available for deliberation, although these new developments should drive her to reconsider, the Lord willing, not long from now.

Regrettably, in affairs of state, one side cannot be expected to make _every_ decision (as much as they would both prefer that to be the case). Doubly so, when at stake is the well-being of a county belonging to the other’s _de-jure_ demesne. I find myself incapable of committing to serve the territories my lady wife calls home all on my own. The mainland's peculiarities largely befuddle me still, for all I’ve spent the last year in almost constant motion, port to port, township to township, throne room to throne room. Were I a more careless ruler to our subjects, were I not determined to prove my diligence and good faith in spite of everything, I’d spare her the unpleasantness of conversation altogether; since it is true that her well-being worries me greatly.

The court doctor assures me that the Duchess’ state has started to improve, the lingering headaches to have plagued her seeming nothing but a result of overexertion, mingled with a severely weakened appetite. As little as I have been able to observe her, it is evident, by the slimming of her figure and pervasive pallor of her countenance, that dark thoughts have been setting upon her again. And if they should prey on her, then it stands to reason that they should prey on me, as well, and yet I stand, hands bound, any comfort I might provide entirely unwanted.

(Can man or Heaven blame her?)

If I am to be punished thus, then grave punishment it is, to watch her dwindle like a flame with longing for another. How foolish of me, to think her will might change, that she may find in me the whole of what she’s lost.

She would find it, though, in truth. All that once was and more.

You would, Lucia, delight of my chimaeras and torment of my long-spilt blood. My soul in distant earthly shell.

I strive and wait and fret and care and guess. What else’d you have me do? Repent?

I do.

I don’t.

I _do_ , but what good does that bring?

Is it not enough to be the object of derision in your court? In all the courts of Italy? To suffer merry glances when I show my face in royal circles, all jeering “Behold – degenerate! They say he’s just a shadow of his former self. They say he killed his wife, who bore no children, and now sits down halfway upon a rich, adopted seat, begging for scraps off Susa’s table and a look from Susa’s lady!”

And ‘tis, in part, correct. My poor departed spouse, may God preserve her, gave me naught. No heir, no land, and little gold as dowry. No brightness, and no depths of Gehenna.

(‘Tis odd to think of her as such, with something like remorse, to wish well on her soul gone far away too soon; I used to hate her so. But now, what does it matter? The whole farce I have played, the fear, the nights without repose? I feel that I shall join her before long. No man can have such heart’s desire unmet and hope to live.)

And nonetheless, in bygone youth, I was content. I couldn’t fathom what I lacked, and so I did not miss it. I drank and revelled and spent evenings and morns in beds unnumbered – my wife’s but seldom, my serfs’, many a time. I mocked the poets and the troubadours, with tales of love which makes valleys of mountains. What need was there of love?

They sang, too, on that stifling night when the sovereign pontiff anointed the young boy who was to lead us. Great feast? Splendour without match, as is expected for a regency come to an end? Quite possibly. I couldn’t say.

For you were there, all swathed in silk, and I’ve known nothing since.

I must have seen you in the past, at hunts and council meetings, from afar, but somehow dodged the arms of fate, never drew close enough; never unwitting Icarus to Piedmont’s Sun.

And you _were_ Sun: you turned that night to day. That was how I saw my fate unfold before me. You cast your beams of light, and I could read what had to come to pass.

I wish… I wish I’d never heard your laughter, chiming like bells of fine-spun crystal. I wish I’d never seen you dance, or charm and baffle and outshine all those who swirled around you, just as many moths. 

O Love, I tried to win you afterwards! You were so far, and still I wrote you missives, shivering in wait – where could we have even met in secret, if you had agreed? (I ponder now and laugh.) Halfway between our lands? In an ill-famed roadside inn, as two plebeian criminals?

I told you all. How you’d possessed me, how, if you but said the word, I’d have happily renounced my land, my kin, my senseless days on that pathetic isle and joined you in sweet and blessed rapture, known to none but us.

(I was ashamed to tell you what I’d do when yearning for you overpowered me. What I still do, in my rooms, when quiet dusk brings with it cold, and weakness.)

I sent my most trusted of men to you, in Ivrea, and they waited for your excuse of a Duke to go away a while, then filled your bedchamber with wildflowers.

But virtuous you are, of course, and faithful, and rebuked me. (And I still wonder: did you cherish him? That boar who’s held you, given you two sons? O, I’d show you, if you’d let me, what love is, my darling. No woman in the world has ever been adored –)

Thus, you’ve transformed me. I must have signed the order in a fit of madness I cannot remember. My spymaster was skilled, therefore, succeeded. Ah, you know what I have done, you knew it in an instant, and struck back. It took merely a fortnight for your proposal to find its way into my trembling palms, for the barren, piteous lass who’d bored me half to tears for so long to be found lifeless and dull-eyed in the gardens.

I thought you’d seen the justice in my actions. That no divine nor mortal law should stand against a spirit torn in two, whose halves hunger to meld.

My ring rests on your finger. And your scorn, wedged within my flesh and blood.

You knew how best to torture me, to avenge what I’d taken. Bound me to you, made me believe myself victorious, drove me insane with joy, then shattered any hope of you I might have held.

(Though still I hold out hope, hope against hope, hope that derides me – and that is paling, thank the Lord, day after day. I sense it dimming. Mercy I do not deserve.)

Are you in the least able to imagine what this is, for me? How, when I have to leave, so as to see to the affairs of my own land, I bleed and bleed until I’m back nearby to you? How it feels to be aware you are so far, when I require you, some days, as I require the lungs within my chest?

Since far you are with the Tyrrhenian between us, and farther yet as we endure under one roof together.

(Up to a meagre point, it is better to have you in my sight at meals and during the hours we hold court; but they go by so cruelly!)

Sometimes, in the evenings, I walk along the richly covered corridors that lead around your chambers, and stop in a small alcove where no guards can glance. I lean my forehead on the stone and try to apperceive your warmth. Envision you within. Then, briefly, all is almost well.

~~Were I not terror-stricken at the thought of being parted from you evermore –~~

We are old, my lady. _Lucia_. Why persevere in this? Would the senescence which hounds us not prove to be more tolerable should we endeavour to –

_Please_.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by events that have occurred during one of my Crusader Kings 2 runs.


End file.
